


Meditations on a Mask

by austeneer731



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: F/M, but in canon it's probably incest, oh well, this work assumes they're not related
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-26
Updated: 2015-12-26
Packaged: 2018-05-09 09:56:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5535572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/austeneer731/pseuds/austeneer731
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A missing scene from the movie. Kylo Ren mulls over recent events with his Vader mask.</p><p>This work contains Force Awakens spoilers!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meditations on a Mask

            Kylo Ren strode into his private quarters and shut the door behind him with a wave of his gloved hand. He stood for a moment, drawing deep, unsteady breaths, before walking over to the chair in the center of the room. He sat and bowed his head.

            “Forgive me,” he said to the rotting mask before him. “I was weak. I was…”

            He stopped. In truth, he was not sure he had the words to describe what had happened back in the interrogation room. The girl had bested him, a mere slip of a girl with a head full of sand and oceans and Han Solo.

            He remembered the jolt that had passed through him when he sifted through her thoughts and found his father. No, not his father—Ben Solo’s father. An important distinction, one that he had momentarily forgotten. _“He would have disappointed you,”_ he had whispered to the girl, leaning close (why had he leaned so close?) Memories, long-buried, flashed through his mind: the Millennium Falcon taking off for yet another far-flung journey, missing birthday presents— _“Sorry, kid, I meant to pick something up, but then there were these Coruscani ogres”—_ and raised voices in the living quarters after he had gone to bed. Ben Solo’s parents were always fighting.

            With all the tumult in his mind, he had barely heard the girl yell at him to get out of her head. Then, to his rage and disbelief, he had felt her _there,_ amid his thoughts and memories…

            “It was not my fault,” he told Vader’s mask. “She is strong with the force.” But it was a pathetic excuse. Even with her raw potential, she should be no match for him, master of the Knights of Ren. She should not have been able to invade his mind, drawing out his deepest fear… _“You will never be as strong as Darth Vader!”_

With an agitated gesture, Ren stood and began pacing the room. So the girl had blundered into his mind, catching a glimpse of the conflict between dark and light. What of it? He would crush her the same way he had crushed all of Skywalker’s young Jedis. Or he would turn her to the Dark Side, with the help of his master.

            “Snoke.” Ren’s steps faltered. “I should bring this news to him,” he said, speaking to himself more than to the mask. His master would probably want to see the girl so that he could test her powers….

            A strange reluctance rose inside him. He had learned in the early days under his master’s tutelage that Snoke was a connoisseur of pain. He delighted in taking people apart, finding their breaking point. Ren found that he did not particularly want to see the girl’s face twisted in agony, her slender form racked by blue lightning.

            He set his teeth. Enough with this weakness! He had felt it since the moment he had taken his mask off in front of her, revealing the face of Ben Solo. The girl had blinked in surprise, and just for a moment Kylo Ren had forgotten all about the map and his quest to destroy Skywalker. He was a boy again, the son of a scoundrel and a general, standing tongue-tied in front of a pretty girl.

            _I will not yield,_ Ren thought as he stalked out of his quarters, heading towards his master’s audience chamber. He would not be seduced by the Light.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Note: This fic implies that Han was an absentee father and that he and Leia had an unhappy marriage. I don't think that's necessarily true in canon, and even if it was, it wouldn't excuse/justify Ren's actions. But he's deeply confused.


End file.
